The last in a set of a couple program notes I've written over the last semester.
Youtube has two recordings of this piece as far as i can tell. Both are pretty decent, but I include the live one here for a few reasons - the other one does not indicate the performers, it is not a video (only a sound recording with a nevertheless very nice picture of Martinu), and I'm reasonably sure that they do change the printed/composed bowing at the beginning to make it easier (it's a slurred ostinato that is extremely difficult to coordinate within and between the sections). But if you are curious you can check out the somewhat cleaner other recording here.
I. Toccata: Allegro moderato (1890-1959)
II. Canzone I: Andante moderato
III. Canzone II: Allegro
It's an unusual format, and became more so as he composed it - originally he wanted the latter two movements to be the "light" to the Toccata's "dark," the songs (literal translation for "canzone") to the Toccata's dance. But they ended up being equally weighty.
Bohuslav Martinů was an early 20th-century composer known for his prolificness and
versatility across a daunting abundance of genres. But of all the forms he experimented and, indeed, excelled at writing, his favorite was the concerto grosso.
This affinity shows itself strongly with this underperformed gem, composed in 1946 during his stint living in the United States, just after he had finished his Fifth Symphony. Martinů wrote that while the symphonic genre offered the broadest scope and "boundless dimensions," the formal, dynamic, and emotional limits of the concerto grosso were of a restrainedness which he enjoyed and blossomed under. He originally conceived of the piece as a return to "less obvious emotion, less noise, and much more music in a condensed form." However, after writing the fairly heavy toccata, his original intention for the canzoni to be light and simple underwent a metamorphosis, and they became much more dramatic and lyrical.
The Toccata, marked Allegro moderato, is a brilliant and compelling perpetuum mobile, featuring murmuring interwoven divisi strings which meld with a restless grumbling piano line. However, despite its incessant persistence in rhythm and in texture, there is an overarching lyricism which makes itself felt in the rhythmic figures as well as the brief but soaring fragments which overlay it. Throughout the movement the piano plays
a pivotal role, a conduit between the wind and string sections' continual sixteenth notes.
The two canzones take complimentary moods, one dignified and the other fierce, but both possessing the same rhythmic consistency and integrity as the toccata. Canzone No. 1 is solemn and stately, beginning with dark octaves and a highly chromatic melody in the solo piano. This line is fragmented and augmented by the rest of the orchestra, before the music coalesces into a luminous middle section featuring solo strings and glowing chords from the rest of the orchestra. The climax is an anguished series of falling triplets and chromatic lines; the movement closes as it began.
The second canzone alternates almost startlingly between the aggressive 6/8 which opens it and a much more lyrical theme. The orchestra plays alternating rhythms that seem to vie with each other for dominance over the meter before slowing to a 3/4 middle section which hovers in melancholy and gorgeously expressive unison lines in the violins. But the Allegro of the opening then returns with a vengeance, extended into a furious climax. The closing section, marked Adagio, is a recall of many of the textures and motifs which have dominated this rigorously rhythmic piece. The piece ends in a glorious, incandescent D Major.
Youtube has four very decent recordings of this piece (possibly more, but these were my highlights)
Claire-Marie Le Guay with Christophe Mangou and the Orchestre Nationale d'lle de France. I like this one because aside from being very well executed, it's a video and you can see (sort of) the unusual instrumentation and the configuration, which is one that Poulenc includes himself in the score of the piece. Sviatoslav Richter Pascal Roge Jacques Fevrier
I. Toccata (Lento e pesante - Molto animato)
II. Récitatif: Les compagnes de Diane (Larghetto)
III. Rondeau (Allegro) - Entrée de Diane (Piu mosso)
IV. Toilette de Diane (Presto)
V. Récitatif: Introduction à la Variation de Diane (Larghetto)
VI. Andante: Variation de Diane (Andante con moto - Animer - Emporté)
VII. Allegro feroce: Désespoir de Diane
VIII. Conclusion: Adieux et depart de Diane (Adagio - Più mosso)
Poulenc's 1929 Aubade was written for and financed by the Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Noailles, the latter of who was one of 20th-century Paris's most forward-thinking and visible arts patrons. Its unusual instrumentation - it is one of a fairly exclusive group of orchestral concert pieces that does not include violins - is a result of the ensemble that was budgeted for the fete given the evening of the premiere at the Noailles' mansion on June 18th, 1929.
Poulenc was a master of compositional balance, toeing the line between levity and depth, clarity and richness. This piece, now known more or less as Poulenc's first piano concerto, was originally conceived as ballet music and was premiered with choreography by Bronislava Nijinska (George Balanchine choreographed the public premiere some months later). It chronicles the story of the Diana, Roman goddess of the hunt and of chastity. The action of the ballet depicts her anguished struggle with her fate-decreed bonds of abstinence; its name refers to a Middle Age piece played or sung outdoors at dawn, and references the fact that the plot here begins at daybreak and ends at dawn one day later. While the Aubade has since become exclusively a concert piece - in fact, Poulenc cautions performers and audiences not to overcredit the programmatic aspect of this piece - it is still evident that Diana's plight of solitude informs the character and emotional shape of this piece.
The Aubade opens with a stark brass fanfare, and the first of the eight short segments (which are performed without pause) consists mostly of a frenzied solo piano cadenza channeling Diana's distress and loneliness, at odds with her eternal chastity. The orchestra's reentrance signals the awakening of Diana's companions, and the music is at first grim and foreboding but then slides into a graceful rondo, with the piano stating each subject and theme before ceding it to the orchestra. Diana's entrance at the Piu mosso is marked by a brightening of timbres and quickening of pace. The third segment, marked Presto, is a merry, quick and lively depiction of the companions as they dress Diana for her day, and its pert ending marks the conclusion of the first half of the piece.
The following Recitatif is more solemn, beginning with dissonant flourishes from the bassoons and oboes, and marked by firm dotted rhythms. Diana is handed a hunting bow, upon which she proceeds to dance alone in a lovely but resigned Andante introduced by solo clarinet and flute. The end of this dance is marked by a pale oscillation in the flutes, a foreshadowing of the ending. The penultimate movement, Diana's despair, is a furious and fierce outburst. It is over as suddenly as it began, however, and in the end succumbs to bleakness and loneliness. The clarinets give a flurry of protest, but in the end, a lonely solo cello line leads us to the austere coda, which features a stern brass statement overlain by a seemingly neverending series of A-minor oscillations in the upper winds and solo piano. Eventually these, too, recede into the unelaborate ending of a single low A piano strike.
The first movement is featured here, though hopefully sometime I will find the time to do the rest of it. Program notes for ICSO 3/3
Can't go wrong with Argerich.
Prokofiev's third and most enduringly popular piano concerto was premiered in 1921 (though sketches of the second movement date as far back as 1913). The bulk of the composition was completed during the summer of that year, which he spent in Brittany, France. He premiered it himself that December with Frederick Stock and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Vital and witty, this three-movement concerto is a pillar of the
twentieth-century piano repertoire.
The first movement opens with a quiet and lyrical clarinet solo, which the strings also quote. The introspective mood does not last long, however, as the strings rush forward with sixteenth notes to begin the Allegro, and the piano bursts forward with the main subject, a lively chattering theme. A slower, more wistful theme is articulated first by the oboe over pizzicato strings, which the piano develops before accelerating into a series of cascading triplets which crescendos into a grand restatement of the Andante theme, now given fully and expressively by the entire orchestra. The music segues into a long, discursive development of this theme. Then, with four quietly expectant chords intoned by the winds, the Allegro is brought back with a vengeance. The recapitulation features abrupt, jagged tempo changes that highlight each returning theme. The recapitulation of second theme winds down gradually, as if out of steam. But just before the listener catches his breath, the piano enters for the final flourish, a continuous run of sixteenths which drives forward inexorably to a thrilling close.
this has been my absolute favorite piano concerto for at least a year now, and i'm not sure anything will change that too soon. it is being performed here next week, and so i have written program notes for it. they are necessarily brief because of the nature of the concert, which involves a lot of selections, but actually halfway through writing them i just turned on the capslock and wrote, I FUCKING LOVE THIS CONCERTO AND YOU SHOULD JUST LISTEN TO IT BEFORE I RUIN IT WITH PALTRY WORDS. and that's how i feel. but this is my best effort at it.
and this is the only recording anyone in need of a recording should watch:
he gets a real grace and elegance and effortlessness, and all while looking like it takes no effort at all. of course, just for shock value, the recording of bernstein conducting this WHILE AT THE PIANO is also worth a gander. argerich also has a beautiful rendition.
One of two piano concerti Ravel
composed, this dazzling jazz-influenced work premiered to
long-lasting success in 1932, with Marguerite Long at the piano and
Ravel himself conducting. Though it sparkles pianistically, its color
and character derive in equal part from Ravel's distinctive use of
the orchestra, which is as vital in this work as in any of his
exclusively orchestral compositions.
The first movement opens with a single
whip crack and a sprightly first subject presented by the winds above
a light accompaniment and scintillating flourishes in the piano.
Gradually the entire orchestra joins in the theme, until the piano
emerges with a rhapsodic discourse, punctuated by blues figures from
the winds; the second theme ascends, lyrical and more introverted, is
introduced quietly by the piano. Syncopated accents characterize the
motorlike return of opening material, and the exposition concludes
with a flourishing cadenza that brings back material from the
opening. The dreamlike development is a thoughtful extension upon the
first theme, featuring string harmonics, a harp solo, and massive
colorful outbursts from the orchestra. The second theme's development
crests into the same motor of sixteenths which incessantly drives us
forward to the boisterous, brassy descending scale that concludes the
movement.
The transcendent second movement
spotlights one of Ravel's most ethereal strokes of lyrical genius,
and one of his most hard-won. The first subject, presented initially
only by the solo piano, exists serenely for several minutes, until a
solo flute breaks the reverie and allows the rest of the orchestra to
enter. The second subject is darker and accompanied by dissonant
rising chords in brass and winds, but retains the stately loveliness
imparted by the incessant waltz-like chords in the solo piano. After
a brief and lushly dissonant zenith, the first theme is brought back
by an extended English horn solo, around which the piano flows gently
and continually to a glowing close.
The third movement is a moto perpetuo,
a tour de force by both soloist and orchestra. It opens with four
explosive chords which recur throughout the movement, and features
difficult solos for almost all the wind and brass instruments. The
movement switches between a sixteenth-note running motor and a
galloping triplet figure, and ends abruptly, with the same four
chords that open the movement.
i won't pretend to understand most of this piece, but i would like to talk a bit about the setup and things that are involved in performing it, since we did so just the other week here at school.
this piece is three movements (without break) in 21 minutes, and involves a highly prepared piano along with a bunch of fairly nonconventional percussion. since i wasn't involved in the piano preparation, i'm just going to list the objects that are needed here and move on to a discussion of the other performance setups.
objects needed for the piano: 8 screws, 40 bolts (including headless, black, stove and furniture bolts, bolts in thin rubber casing, 1 bolt with weather stripping etc.), 4 short strips of rubber (or 8 wedges carved from soft rubber erasers), 4 rubber bolts, 1 US penny, 1 strip of felt, 11 strips of soft plastic (wire insulation), and a plastic bridge.
this list is courtesy of Tzenka Dianova, from "John Cage's Prepared Piano: the Nuts and Bolts"
the most problematic item above is the plastic bridge, which is not well described (or even really described at all. the idea is that the bridge rests on the sounding board and produces microtones. the suggestion in this book is a plastic ruler which was trimmed to fit under the indicated strings.
the piece is described as a kind of a middle ground between written out music and cage's "chance" music. he uses a technique called "gamut" which is where he creates and (geometrically) moves across rectangular charts of notes, chords and sonoroties to derive his music. in the first movement, the orchestra music uses one of these charts while the piano is improvisatory and like "free composition,"; in the second, a different chart is created for the piano part, and in the third, both piano and orchestra use the same chart.
below is a recording from youtube.
the piece calls for a number of very unconventional percussion implements, among them a metal slinky suspended from a height and flicked with a fingernail. you can hear this at about 8:08. obviously because of the nature of the instrument it has to be amplified.
another electronic aspect is the boom box/radio which is supposed to be "set to a local station" and played at certain points in the score (usually for no more than one or two seconds). this introduces another element of chance and can result in some spectacularly awkward moments in the performance. (i think 3:29 is one of these, as is 8:46.)
the piece is scored also for an electric "buzzer" which should be audible at just after 8:00, although i can't seem to discern it in this recording (it should be pretty much corresponding with the thunder sheet sound). i think for this we just used a buzzer button amplified.
other unusual implements include a metal garbage can (2:17), various types of maracas and shakers, thunder sheet, and a "water gong," which is a gong that is struck and then lowered/raised into a tub of water, which bends and alters the pitch. there are also a number of points at which one of the percussion people has to go in and scrub some sort of metal apparatus along the piano strings as the piano player plays (orchestral - there is another pianist who plays both a prepared piano as well as a celest, in addition to the concerto soloist) (5:43 is one example of this sound, as is about 6:03); we also amplified this. piano strings can take a lot of abuse, as long as the soundboard isn't messed with too much.
the piece is so spare that we decided to perform it with most of the lights dimmed and stand lights for all the performers. it gave it a sort of eerie and surreal feel. this piece is quite difficult to get into - the only thing i catch on to really is the d minor chord that opens the piece :P
but it's good to keep an open mind. enjoy!
if you would like to see a nice video of this piece being performed, there is a video of the IC chamber orchestra performing it here. i think both the buzzer and the slinky are much more successful in this performance, you can hear both in close proximity from about 22:53 to 23:00. in particular our slinky sounded less like metal rattling and much more like a toy gun :)
this movement suffers all kind of abuse by being included in compilations of adagios and being played just as fully and lushly as possible. not that there's not a place for that in this gorgeous four minutes, but i think most will agree that the most magical are the pianissimo first twenty bars (and the moment at which the climax you want at 1:27 - a lot more yearning in the orchestral version - gets cut off by another pianissimo).
i don't think this movement requires any imagery besides that which he gives you in the title. it's such a rich image - a nighttime garden, which begins to glow softly with fairy light. he holds off the full glow for so long that by the time 2:49 comes you practically want to cry when you see that your hopes are actually going to be realized.
of course, those who have heard the orchestral version will yearn for the power and dynamic of the full orchestra. but i think there is something endearingly chordal about this piano version.
"When I think of your good heart, you do not seem so ugly." "Oh, I should say so! I have a good heart, but I am a monster." "There are many men who are more monstrous than you." "If I were witty I would pay you a great compliment to thank you, but I am only a beast."
"Beauty, would you like to be my wife?" "No, Beast!"
"I die happy because I have the pleasure of seeing you once again." "No, my dear Beast, you shall not die. You shall live to become my husband." ... The Beast had disappeared, and she beheld at her feet a prince more handsom than Amor, who was thanking her for having lifted his spell.
this is the movement that taps into a story we all know. from ravel's description we can easily match up which parts of this conversation map to his quotes and characters. the lovely introductory melody represents the belle, and at 1:16 the low chromatic melody represents the beast (this is a contrabassoon in the orchestral version). clearly the first climax right after this around 2:00 is meant to be the first rejection.
i think in the original fairy tale the beast begins to die here of heartbreak (not like in disney with the angry mob and battering ram). i'm not sure i agree with the cartoon's interpretation, given the content association of the first climax (which is more or less the same, but less intense). i think that perhaps the second climax at 2:50 is meant to be when beauty realizes the beast is dying - and then realizes her affection for him.
the transformative moment after that is given to a violin solo with these really difficult harmonics, in the orchestral version. a cello enters afterwards with a much higher version of the beast theme - perhaps meant to be the beast after his transformation.
"She undressed and got into the bath. Immediately the toy mandarins and mandarinesses began to sing and to play instruments. Some had theorbos made from walnut shells; some had viols made from almond shells; for the instruments had to be of a size appropriate to their own."
this is probably my favorite animation of the set.
the movement is formally complete, more than the two vignettes we just heard. it has a twinkling exposition full of little sixteenth note licks, and a middle section with a more sinuous melody (in the orchestral version played by a clarinet and accompanied by gong strikes). the recap is fantastic and ends the movement with a flash of brilliance.
i think this movement benefits the most from orchestration. though the piano can attain some of that spark and cleanliness, nothing can substitute for the color and pizzazz added by the celeste, percussion, string pizz and lush chords, and wind solos. i love ravel's use of the upper range here, clearly used to effect the miniature instruments. many oriental-affecting classical pieces have the tendency to saturate with pentatonic scale. ravel does this here, but has some interesting twists: listen at 1:59. gorgeous
in english: Tom Thumb, a little character in english folklore who gets in all sorts of trouble because of his size, which is about that of a thumb. (cool trivia: wiki says that this little fairy tale was the very first to be printed in english.) in this movement, he has left a trail of bread crumbs behind him so as not to get lost...
"He believed he'd easily find his way because of the bread that he'd strewn all along his path; but he was very surprised to find not a single crumb: the birds had come and eaten everything."
the music in this movement is easily evocative of directionless meandering owing to its inconsistent meter (6/4, 5/4, 4/4, 3/4 all included), and of a sort of miniature scale world owing to its scant orchestration. the tempo in this version is a bit brisker than i would like, but it does give that steady flow that's the most important thing in this movement.
at 1:59 you can hear the bird calls. the rising high notes are one, and the "cuckoo" afterwards is another. presumably these are the ones who have eaten his bread crumbs.
my favorite moment is the very last chord... the key is nebulous (probably c minor given the key signature, but the harmonies take it in a sort of whole-tone direction), but all of a sudden we end on a c major chord.
the french is too long to put in the title and fairly useless for those who read this anyway.
i'm trying to make a comeback on this blog after viewing the stats feature and seeing that sometimes folks from random other places (switzerland? australia, apparently??) land here. sorry for the leave.
true to form, ravel put this piece in three different forms and it's hard to find a recording of the version i know best, the "suite" of five orchestral pieces. i think it's best known in its original piano duo form, a fairly easy little set which he composed for two children of close friends of his (his second family, of sorts, after his father's death). the piano duo version was composed in 1910, and the year after he orchestrated it. in 1912 he added two new movements to the orchestral version, and this is usually the version that orchestras play and record today. anyway, today i cover the suite in its original form, which is obviously not quite as colorful as the orchestral format but lovely in its simplicity.
i could put a more illustrious recording up, but part of me has always been enamored of fantasia enough to have a long-held dream of continuing its vision of pairing animation with classical music. i don't think i would usually want to promote a single set of images over another, but ravel was pretty obvious when he named these pieces and inserted blurbs before every one that he wanted kids to be able to access these pieces through stories. (actually, he fails to insert blurbs before the first and last pieces. but the first one is so short and the last one so colorful that the music serves fine in these cases.) so this little animation exercise won me over immediately, and the playing is beautiful and simple.
the pavane of the sleeping beauty is a scant 20 bars in a minor, clocking in at less than two minutes. in the orchestral version the lines are carried by soft solo winds, and tiptoing pizz in the strings. the meter and form don't really follow the "pavane" technically, but there are two adjectives which typically get paired when talking about pavanes: slow and stately, which both describe this movement nicely.
For today, I have some piano pieces i was fortunate enough to hear live in paris this summer.
i love the way kempff accomplishes these. he takes slow tempi, but they are full of deliberation and conviction. i think everything brahms wanted to come through does so magnificently in his interpretations. there's just a hint of melancholy which keeps it from being virtuosic (the way it sounds when rubinstein, for example, plays them), but for me they don't sink into dirges or anything like that.
in order, the pieces are:
No. 1. Intermezzo in A minor. Allegro non assai, ma molto appassionato
No. 2. Intermezzo in A major. Andante teneramente
No. 3. Ballade in G minor. Allegro energico
No. 4. Intermezzo in F minor. Allegretto un poco agitato
No. 5. Romance in F major. Andante
No. 6. Intermezzo in E flat minor. Andante, largo e mesto
these were written in 1893 and composed for Clara Schumann. there's much to be said for performing them as a set, as the keys not only form a relationship based on the second (Am-AM-Gm-Fm-FM-Ebm), but the secondary key areas for all the middle sections of these pieces are also linked tonally in ways which i won't go into here (a reasonable link discussing these relationships).
i think kempff does a good job of bringing out some motifs that will catch your ear across all six pieces, another reason for performing/listening to these all in a group. the first is grandiose but runs the danger of getting thick. it treats its keys ambiguously in the best of brahmsian fashion, sounding in F Major for the first statement, and only in the developmental middle section does it begin to yearn for an A minor cadence - which it actually only reaches for the first time in the piece at around 1:00. and the piece actually concludes in A Major, the key of the second work.
here i think Brahms does some of his best voicing. as a result the important motifs are pretty much clear as day. my favorite moment in this respect is in the middle section which is in F minor, where you hear the descending motif in the right hand but also augmented in the top notes of the left hand, at the same time (around 1:39 and much more clearly again about 10 seconds later). the result is a lot of parallel sixths ringing out of the texture. the same thing emerges in the latter half of the development section which is more urgent and as a result compressed.
for now my personal favorite is the more lively ballade, no. 3. i enjoy the dovetailing of the left hand accompaniment with the melodic notes in the right. harmonically the most interesting thing is that while the introduction is decisively in g minor (with a second statement in e-flat major), it utilizes g major dominant chords (the V of iv) to gravitate the middle section towards B Major, which isn't really anything in G minor but found by chromatic motion. The same with the brief modulation to D-sharp minor, (enharmonically E-flat minor, but he spells it as the former).
the transition back to g minor involves a move to G Major first, and the same chromatic adjustment to a-flat major, C dominant 7 again, then V-i to minor.
the very last chords are an unusual cadence from VI-i (eb major to g minor, first inversion).
now we find ourselves in f minor, with an unsettled set of triplets that switches from hand to hand. for me the magic happens in the middle section, which is a placid section of held chords which move over a tolling low note in the left hand. when the recap comes it is outspoken rather than muted, and never quite regains its composure until the end of the piece in glistening f major, the key of the next piece.
for me the thing that strikes me immediately about this fifth piece is that even though the tune our ears will gravitate towards is placed in the middle - he knows that we'll notice it because it is the quickest-moving voice, with the nice eighth note pattern coming in later variations - the top voice is to the letter the same as the descending theme in the middle section of the a major intermezzo (no. 2). the middle section, in d major, is fluttering and ethereal. the moment when it plummets into d minor is pretty remarkable, at about 2:33. at the moment before the recap he writes an A-Bb trill which goes up, characteristically and ambiguously, to a C-D trill which suggests C Major, the dominant to F, without ever actually stating it (both the E and G are missing).
the beginning of the sixth piece is the most ambiguous of all, with a dislocated play on Eb-F-Gb which turns out to fit into a fully diminished A7 chord, giving pretty much no indication of where we are now. we settle uneasily into Eb minor about 20 seconds in, but series of thirds and the lack of any real cadence in the tonic key along with the murmuring in the left hand (including plenty of diminished chords) destabilize the tonality. we hit a little detour into D-flat Major/B-flat minor, which take us into the relative major of Gb for the middle section, where it stays for all of three bars before veering into the minor areas of Bb minor.
for me it seems as if the entire piece revolves around the note of Gb, but fitting it into as many different contexts as he can get to. brahms had a thing for the ambiguity of the III, and here i think he pivots around it quite characteristically.
i remembered this piece on a whimsy and decided to look it up since i couldn't remember what it actually was but remember having had to analyze it at some point in my beginning theory class (i think it was given us as an example of something that sort of defies analysis. there is a bunch of strange substitution, cadencing in the wrong keys... etc).
there are 8 pieces in this Op. 76, and this is of course the second. it is marked allegretto non troppo.
this is short and there are wonderful recordings so i can afford to post a few. respectively: rubinstein, backhaus, and kempff.
when brahms wrote this in 1878 he hadn't written any solo piano music for twelve years and marked the beginning of the sort of "later" piano works which was a much smaller body. this particular capriccio has proved popular, its playful but somehow sophisticated gypsy like demeanor making the piece an immediate earworm.
the piece is in a sort of rounded binary form, where the first section is comprised of both minor and major portions (the major portion being in the relative of DM).
the middle section, starting at 1:25 (of the rubinstein), is in G Major, a dominant to the relative major D. here is some very typical Brahms piano writing - lush, arpeggiated, lots of chromatic adjustments and lyrical melodies.
recap at 2:30, with a texturally similar but still fantastically original spin on the original theme, lots of octave jumps, etc. after a lot of chromatic uncertainty, the piece slows to a halt, and ends with a B Major chord.
for me it's important to capture a sort of shadowed grace which i think kempff does quite well - the slightly slower tempo and amount of weight he gives to all the notes (which are easy to make flippant if you take the staccato at their word) are just right, as is the curve he gives to the end of each phrase. i also like how the middle section is the same tempo - for me that's about the initial tempo he chooses, so he doesn't have to change too much upon hitting the lyrical section. i also like how the a tempo doesn't feel like a recap until he actually hits the main material of the theme.
the backhaus recording is different for sure. probably just by listening, judging from his ornamentations, his rhythm and phrasing, which are more along the lines of instinct than anything else, you can tell he is actually 70 at the time of this recording.
orchestra is less to my liking in this movement in this recording - not quite light enough.
quiet c major opening, but nevertheless full of energy: this is the G major theme for the last movement. it features the rhythm quarter (eighth rest) sixteenth-sixteenth | quarter, and opens in C major for a while before correcting to the G major tonic.
1:12 - B section, in a lovely pastoral D major. features lots of great arpeggios and acrobatic playing.
2:27 - the piano leads us with some scales right back into the A theme.
3:13 - piano takes the bombastic part of the A theme in a completely different direction, ending in E-flat major. (later B-flat minor, F minor, etc etc) one can think of this section as a sort of development.
4:37 - the development leads to material from the B section, this time in G major.
5:51 - we start diverging from the original B section material. eventually we get to a big F-sharp diminished 7, acting as a vii to G.
6:28 - the G acts as a dominant to C, putting us back at the A theme.
the last part of this movement is quite unique: starting at 7:00 we have a normal F#dim chord, which switches enharmonically and becomes a Gb Major chord, putting us more or less as far away from the tonic as we can get. now we're on a sequence around the circle of fifths, leaving us in the perfect position for cadenza.
9:28 after the cadenza we spring into a super fast coda, led into by strings with D-A alternating eighths. from there on it's a straight shot to the end!
this movement is one of the strangest second movements i can think of. it is sort of slow, but not at all in the same manner of usual slow movements.
E minor.
a solemn, declarative almost marchlike orchestral introduction by unison strings only, which leaves it sort of groundless and uncertain (the thing that keeps it from becoming a march). rather, this movement takes on the tone of a sort of recitative. the orchestra does a sort of rhythm thing at certain intervals, and the piano enters mournfully, alone, and spends the entire movement playing "against" the sternness of the strings. it's fascinating to listen to because it's so counterintuitive, the way the piano stays so calm against the austerity of the strings. gradually the strings phase out and leave the piano to soliloquize and lament on his own. 2:31.
the piano's monologue goes on for a while and eventually rises to a full cry, with dissonant intervals and an ongoing trill which heightens the tension (3:30). (imho arrau does this pretty magnificently.) eventually, this dies, though, replaced by an unmeasured, sad scale which eventually dies into a cadence in e minor. upon the cadence the orchestra reenters with its former dotted rhythm, and together they come to a quiet, sad agreement, with the piano sounding a strange afterthought on a high G before closing on e minor.
the e minor chord doesn't linger too long, though - it dovetails right into the third movement attacca, which begins with a quiet c major chord (using the E as the transition point).
the reason i got hung up on publishing this concerto was because on the day i decided to do it i started by browsing youtube videos to see which one i would like to post. this turned out to be a mistake, as i didn't find any that i truly loved and hence had no incentive to actually post. but i just found this arrau recording, and even though it's not a video, i'm posting it because i like it.
klemperer, philharmonia.
1/2/2/2 2/2/0/0 timp str
this was composed in 1807, and premiered in a private living-room concert with the coriolan overture and symphony 4 (op. 60). the public premiere didn't come until 1808, and was beethoven's last appearance as a solo pianist. it was also the premiere of symphonies 5 and 6, and the choral fantasy. (yea, what a ridiculous concert that must have been.)
in my experience, this is the beethoven piano concerto that music snobs like to like (at the expense of the more extroverted, jollier and altogether more exciting emperor concerto, no. 5). alone among the five, it has a really unique grace, poise, and gentleness about it. one of the best things is the very opening - solo piano, all alone, with the chorded theme. this is made even more astonishing by the entrance of the orchestra in B Major, which sort of relocates the key to B instead of acting as the III chord.
the entrance of the piano right after the introduction is one of my favorite moments, especially 3:12.
this movement comes in pretty standard sonata form. after the orchestral introduction you have exposition until
about 6:45, with a second theme in D Major at 4:40. this second theme goes on for a while, circling around the fifths, and finally ending up in material from the first theme (instead of a D Major cadence like we expect) at 6:45. after bringing back the first theme material in the dominant key, we end up 7:38 with a mysterious repeated F, which somehow leads us into a development featuring falling minor chords, leaving us rather unsure of what key we are in. after falling down a huge sequence, we end up with a long section which serves as the dominant to C# Minor. though we start expecting this cadence for a while it doesn't come for a while, and when it does it is pp. this is my other favorite movement of the piece (9:15).
C#minor turns, stepwise, into D#dim, and then cadences neatly in E major. here we are on the ride back to the theme, with a long section serving as the dominant to tonic G major! the moment before the capitulation, the horns come in with a terrific call to announce the arrival of the tonic. then the first theme comes back, not at all introverted this time, but mighty and glorious.
this goes on as expected until 0:40, with the Bb7 chord and cadence in a faraway key - Eb major. it turns out that this is a sort of neapolitan to D, which continues to retransition to state the second theme, but this time in the correct key of G Major.
the rest is more or less as we expect. the second theme finishes in G, and we are led to a cadenza, which finishes on a quiet trill with the reentrance of the orchestra on the main theme.
i think arrau captures the grace for me in a way that most of the recordings on youtube don't, but feel free to make suggestions - there are lots of wonderful recordings of this piece.
hummel is the perfect example of a composer whom we know was great yet have a hard time remembering anything specific about. he epitomizes the importance of historical context and what it does to our memory. sometimes i've heard my friends ask questions like, why do no tchaiks and brahmses exist today - that music is still perfectly good and nobody would mind if more of it was written. and sometimes i wish too that more things in the veins of past composers would continue to be written (ok maybe just more brahms). but the truth is if anyone tries to write this stuff now, they merely consign themselves to hummel's fate, which is to be remembered mostly as "beethoven's contemporary" who wrote music that sounded more or less entirely like early beethoven.
but of course i am not giving hummel himself enough credit: he was extremely popular when he died (1837 - almost ten years after beethoven's death). he fit in great with the culture of the times - wealthy patronage, lovely, graceful, "clementi-style" classical era music. this isn't to say that he just played it safe all the time either - just that his pioneering techniques in composition and performance (he was a well-known pianist) were presented early in his career, and by the eve of his life he found his influence had faded in the face of romanticism.
this piano concerto really sparkles. i can only find one professional recording that seems *ever* to have been made, but fortunately it is a good one. it is even harder to find program notes on this piece, which nobody seems to play. but hummel's piano concerti in general were studied by several generations of the greatest piano-composers - liszt, schumann, mendelssohn, and chopin, to name a few. he never composed a symphony.
this is an expansive movement, almost 15 minutes (to the second movement's 6). it contains so many characteristics of the classical piano concerto that they almost don't seem to be worth going through.
orchestral tutti which introduces all the themes, the first one an e-flat fanfare-like theme and the second at 1:09, a tinge of mellow minor followed by a more playful section with some light graceful notes.
notice orchestration: the strings definitely play the most prominent role, as they were wont to do in early classical music, with winds providing orchestration. (remember, for instance, in bach's orchestra, where basically the only time the very few winds play are for extended solos.)
piano enters at 2:54 with harmonically active material which propels it through the entire exposition. 5:24 is a play on the second theme which was outlined by the orchestra in the introduction.
okay, i think this concerto explains itself rather well. (also, because i can't find any information on it, your guess about all the material is definitely just as good as mine). but do take my word for it that this is a fantastic classical piano concerto.
for today's triple post due to my crazy laziness this weekend, three of the russian five (the loser on this one will be, unfortunately, mr. cui, who is so difficult to find music by that it almost seems amazing to me that we even remember that there were the russian five instead of four. maybe someday in the future i will make up for this).
balakirev is almost certainly the next least well-known after cesar cui, perhaps except among pianists. the majority of his repertoire was written for solo piano, and his career was as a mentor (to many composers that we do know rather more well, like rimsky), solo pianist, and musical intellectual. he did a lot to develop the state of musical perception in the public sphere and most of his works have a flair for the nationalistic. his primary influences were tchaikovsky, chopin, and glinka, and he was the only professional musician of the russian five, so he had to be, more or less, their PR man.
this concerto was begun in 1861, but not finished or published until after his death. the first movement was finished by 1862, but he stopped writing it. he picked it up again in 1906 and had not finished the last movement by 1910 when he died. the last movement was written mostly by his friend sergei liapunov, via sketches and directions from balakirev.
here we have what i'm pretty sure is the only recording on youtube... malcolm binns with conductor david lloyd-jones and the english northern philharmonia.
this work is written in basically sonata form. its key is said to refer to that of beethoven eroica, as well as schumann rhenish (also sounds a lot to me like the beginning of beethoven emperor). more or less all of balakirev's music was quite consciously to develop a language of nationalistic music, in a rather all-encompassing way that perhaps is better applied to him than it is for sibelius and grieg, other composers who are often just called "nationalistic." the first subject is a folksy motif introduced by an orchestra tutti. the piano comes in at 0:50, with a continuation of that idea, and includes lots of pianistic flourishes. somewhere along the way about 3 minutes in we get hints of themes in g-flat major. development begins at about 4:40. in sound and development this sounds to me quite a bit like tchaikovsky pc, but dale points out that the orchestration is generally a bit less pristine than it is in tchaikovsky, and that the use of folk material as main melodies a lot more for granted.
the first video ends basically just as the recap is beginning.
it's interesting that this concerto should fall so far out of the limelight when it seems to have much of the pizazz necessary for piano concerti to succeed. give it a listen and see if you think history has been unfair to it.
1926
OK once more i am sort of copping out by doing music everyone knows (and that wikipedia does a pretty reasonable entry on). who hasn't heard these preludes?
these are great examples of early 20th century american classical music, infusing jazz and coming out with all-american favorites.
here's gershwin himself.
a very unsentimental recording. turn up the volume.
here's something different:
part 1 is based on that famous five note motif with the bluesy half step at the beginning. standard a-b-a form with lots of virtuosic jazzy octave embellishments in the return.
part 2 is the paragon of bluesy blues. notice how gershwin himself doesn't even bother to swing anything (whereas virtually everything in the very cheesy bernstein recording is swung, and he even adds his own section...) the thing to notice in this movement is the bass line/accompaniment: classic blues chords (the chromatic line moving above perfect intervals, and then in the middle a sort of walking bass).
part 3 is a highly syncopated, in your face display of virtuosity that has become known as "the spanish prelude" of the three. the exposition has a recurring melody that forms a minor half answered by a major half.
